We have been working on our current project, a peal of 8-spliced, for a while. We rang our first quarter in November 2012, and since then we've rung several more quarters, and lost a peal a few times. We find it difficult to get together for peal attempts, so we are not able to attempt a peal week after week until we get it; also, we have had some detours into Surprise Royal and Kent Maximus. Anyway, yesterday we scored the peal!

Scottish Association
Glasgow
1 Albany Quadrant
Monday, 9 June 2014 in 2h31 (15 in C)
5120 Spliced Surprise Major
(8m: 896 Rutland; 704 Lincolnshire, Yorkshire; 640 Cambridge; 576 London, Pudsey, Superlative; 448 Bristol. 87 com, atw)
Composed by Philip G. K. Davies

1–2 Angela H Deakin
3–4 Tina R Stoecklin
5–6 Jonathan S Frye
7–8 Simon J Gay (C)

First of 8-spliced in hand: 1-2, 3-4 and 5-6.
Congratulations to Katherine Deakin and James Falconer on their engagement.

The composition is a well-known 2-part by Philip Davies:

5120 Spliced Surprise Major (8m)
Philip G K Davies

23456    B  M  W  H   Methods
---------------------------------   
23564    -        -   BBBB.PP.
56234          -  -   PPYN.PCC.
42635       -     -   CPC.CR.
45236    -     -  -   RRL.BBB.R.
24536             -   RPNNN.
65432       -     -   R.YCCY.
46532             -   SCSSSSS.
34562          -      YCSP.SNN
25463       -     -   NSN.RRRRRR.
42563             -   LYL.
52364       -         NYY.LRLLLL
43265       -     -   L.YR.
24365             -   NNPCYYY.  
---------------------------------
2 part. 
896 Rutland; 704 Lincolnshire (N), Yorkshire; 640 Cambridge; 
576 London, Pudsey, Superlative; 448 Bristol. 
87 com, all the work, 73 cru's. 

As far as I know, this is the easiest all-the-work composition of 8-spliced. The part end 12436578 means that 3-4 and 5-6 do the same work in the second half as in the first half, but with the pair the other way around. The composition is sometimes published starting with the last course, NNPCYYY, which gives a part end of 13246578 - not so friendly for handbell ringing. Sometimes it is rung in reverse. There is also another 2-part composition by Philip Davies, with more changes of method.

We rang our handbell peal two days after ringing the same composition in the tower. The tower bell peal had been arranged first, and the idea was to take advantage of it to really polish up our knowledge of the methods (and composition) before trying it on handbells. The handbell peal went quite well; room for improvement, certainly, but there were some extended periods of very tidy ringing. London and Bristol still catch us out sometimes. There were a few rough leads of London, but we got through them without any swaps. The band reported afterwards that they had not been lost, but it seemed difficult to get their bells into the right places. If everyone is ringing perfectly then it's easier for everyone to ring perfectly, but if the rhythm starts to disappear then there's a danger of getting into a fatal cycle of negative feedback. However, overall the peal was very satisfying and a good achievement by everyone.

So what's next? Well, we're just at the beginning of the usual summer disrupted by holidays, so we won't be ringing together for the next few weeks. After that, we're going to get back onto a system of ringing a quarter and then practising something else. I want to explore cyclic spliced - I have some nice quarter peal compositions which I will write about as and when we ring them - and we want to start practising Glasgow as the next challenge.